


Move Alone With The Truth

by Serie11



Series: Femslash February 2018 [4]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Aloy helps Vanasha with a problem..... again, F/F, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Spymaster Vanasha, yes they are flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 12:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13570953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: Vanasha has a problem that only a certain red haired hunter can fix.Aloy just wants to spend more time with Vanasha.





	Move Alone With The Truth

Aloy moved along the bridge leading into Meridian with a purpose. The sun was setting and Aloy was looking forward to eating food that she hasn’t cooked herself. Ever since the battle of Meridian, she’d been very warmly welcomed by basically everyone in the city. Being the Saviour of Meridian had its perks, even if she hated being called Saviour as much as she hated being called Anointed.

She traded for the machines parts she’d picked up in the last few days as quickly as she could, buying some wire and blaze before heading off towards Erend and Talanah’s favourite food stop. She’d love to catch up with either of them over dinner.

Ducking inside, she quickly scanned the perimeter. She could see several people that she recognised, as well as a lot of Oseram who were taking up half the space for themselves, but neither of her friends were here. Disappointed, Aloy still found a place for herself at the bar and asked one of the serving boys for the meal of the day.

He ran off with the shards in his hand. She might have added a few more than she had needed, but it wasn’t like she was lacking in shards. That’s what happened when she could regularly bring down thunderjaws and stormbirds. And the boy had looked thin – honestly, everyone around Meridian was looking worse for wear. She hoped that the boy bought some more food for himself with the shards.

The boy brought a plate back out, along with a tankard of beer, on the house. Aloy sniffed the spiced turkey appreciatively. It was accompanied by two slices of bread and some roasted carrots and potatoes, which were all luxuries that had her salivating. The most she got on the road was travel bread, and that never had egg on it.

Aloy was half way through her meal when someone sat down beside her. She looked sideways and almost fell out of her chair as she recognised said person.

Vanasha smiled at her. She was wearing a long purple and gold dress, but had somehow managed to sit in a way that would allow her full movement of her legs as well as letting her get up quickly if she wanted to. It was a skill Aloy didn’t possess, and was one that might have left her mildly jealous, if she ever wore long skirts which – she didn’t.

“Hello, little huntress,” she said. “What are the chances of meeting you here?”

“Knowing you, this isn’t the result of chance,” Aloy said, raising an eyebrow and eating her food faster. If she’s learned one thing about Vanasha, it’s that trouble follows her like a magnet – or maybe, Vanasha hunts the trouble down. Either way, there’s trouble to be had, and Aloy wants to finish her dinner.

Vanasha chuckled. “You’re right. I had my scouts send word to me the second you were spotted coming into Meridian.”

Curious, Aloy paused in eating the rest of her food. “Scouts?”

“Our most radiant king has recognised my skills,” Vanasha said. “So I have some people who will do my bidding. Not like it was hard to find people to do it before, though.”

Aloy huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, well I know that first hand.”

“You were easy to convince,” Vanasha agreed. “And I’m hoping you will be again. You see, I have a problem, huntress. And you’re one of the only people who can help me.”

Aloy hummed. “Let me finish my dinner, and then we can talk.”

* * *

 

Aloy had been under the palace before, when she tracked Dervahl up from the waterway, but she hadn’t been inside the other areas, which apparently there was a lot of. To be honest, she was kind of afraid for the palace above – how did it stay upright when so much of the rock underneath it had been tunnelled out?

“This is the only hint of a trail that we have,” Vanasha said, standing beside a shattered glass door. Aloy can see dried blood on some parts of it.

“What happened?” Aloy asked, because Vanasha hadn’t said anything on the way over, saying that she didn’t want anyone to hear her discussing it.

Vanasha sighed. “We had a big gala last night – midsummer’s day, you know? Traditionally, it’s the most important day in the Carja year and is always celebrated with a big party at the Palace of the Sun. His royal highness invites all the nobles, and they all scratch each other’s backs. Well this year Avad invited them to see how Meridian still needed help to rebuild, and to ask them for more men and more time and more money. I was among all that, listening to conversations that weren’t meant to be overheard, and convincing people of things that they didn’t want to be convinced of.” She smiled, and Aloy shivered at the shine of her teeth. Vanasha’s smile didn’t look like she was happy.

“Sounds like fun,” Aloy commented, turning on her focus and seeing what she could find out from the surrounding area.

“Oh, it _was,_ ” Vanasha purred. “I had a lot of fun bribing and threatening everyone. If only you had been there, you could have helped. Some nobles think that you don’t even exist, you know?”

“Well, I’m not sorry I wasn’t there to prove them wrong,” Aloy muttered. Her focus was showing her a lot of things – this was the food preparation area. There were still bowls and knives eft out, although all the food had been cleared away. There was a knife on the ground, covered in blood. “What happened, that you need my help?”

“Patience,” Vanasha advised. “I’m just getting to that. Among the nobles at the party, there were some with… unsavoury history. I won’t bore you with the details, but just know that these people were looking for an excuse to kill each other. Not a very nice thing to do when you’re at someone else’s party!”

“No,” Aloy muttered, turning her attention to the tracks that she could pick up. One had a touch of blood in the sole, and she tagged it.

“In attempting to poison the food, someone inadvertently killed a serving boy instead.” Vanasha nodded to the bloody knife that was lying on the ground. “He interrupted our culprit as he was about to put something in the food. I know which table that platter was going to, so I’ve narrowed the perpetrator down a bit, but I’d like to talk to the man himself. If you could be so good as to lead me to him…?”

Aloy quirked a smile. “Well, lucky for you, I’ve got his track.”

“Excellent,” Vanasha purred. “Please, lead on.”

Aloy followed the track through the Palace, winding through rooms. In some places she could tell that the man had run, but in others he had likely walked to blend in with the crowd of people who had been here. Eventually they exited the Palace and crossed into the city. Vanasha cursed under her breath as they passed the guards.

“What use are they if they can’t stop a murderer from escaping?” she fumed. “I’ll have to talk to Marad about this.”

Aloy didn’t envy her. Blameless Marad was someone she didn’t like talking to on a good day, and she doubted that Vanasha was having a good day.

The track continued through Meridian, winding up near the Hunter’s Lodge before Aloy lost the spoor. “This is as far as I can take you,” she said regretfully.

“Well you’ve done a lot more than anyone else has,” Vanasha said. “And this is hardly a deserted area. I have a description – let me ask around.”

Vanasha moved towards some of the loitering people, and Aloy stared up at the towering buildings that surrounded the walkway. How had things this tall even been built? Let alone on a mesa, which would have been hard enough to build on in the first place. Aloy would have to ask Erend if the elevators came before or after the main city had been built. It must have been after, but then how had they gotten all the materials they needed here? Sure, the Old Ones had built on this scale, but they had technologies that Aloy was only just starting to grasp the scale of. She’d never seen the Claim, but if _all_ the buildings there were like this… she shivered.

Vanasha came back to her side. “Luckily for us, someone _did_ see something. Want to go hunting, little huntress?”

“Sounds like fun,” Aloy joked.

Vanasha frowned. “You know, I still haven’t treated you to the good time I promised you the last time you helped me out… you’re not making things easy by doing all these favours for me! Hmm… well, if we manage to wrap things up here tonight, how about you stick around tomorrow?”

Aloy looked Vanasha up and down. She wanted the opportunity to get to know her better, outside of her battlefield skills. And the way that Vanasha’s eyebrow was quirked, _just so_ … If Aloy didn’t know any better, she might have thought that it was an invitation to something more than just a day relaxing somewhere. Or was it? Or was she overthinking things?

Vanasha’s mouth curved into something that looked a lot like an actual, genuine smile. “Of course, if you don’t want to…”

“I’d love to spend the day with you,” Aloy said, cheeks flushing.

“Good,” Vanasha said, satisfied. “Now let’s catch a killer so we can enjoy it, hm?”

Vanasha led them down an alleyway and Aloy picked up the tracks of someone running. They led down one of the great elevators, and then out the northern gate and into the jungle.

“Well I’m glad I packed for a trip,” Vanasha mused, patting the handle of her spear. “And you’re always ready, aren’t you darling?”

“Yeah,” Aloy said, eyes fixed on the trail. “I think it’s getting fresher.”

“Excellent,” Vanasha said, satisfied. “My patience for this hunt is wearing thin.”

About a kilometre down the road, after dodging a herd of chargers, Aloy saw a man leaning on a tree trunk, head in his hands. The tracks led right to him.

“Is that him?” Vanasha asked lowly. Aloy nodded. “Well, you can stay back here if you’d like. I’m sure the politics of the Sundom’s nobles don’t interest you that much.”

Aloy couldn’t disagree, but she trailed after Vanasha anyway, eyes fixed on the jungle around them. She scanned the area with her focus, but picked up no traces of any machines or people. That didn’t mean there weren’t any stalkers around, though. Aloy hated the way that those machines could appear out of nowhere to take her by surprise.

She moved closer to Vanasha and the man, who looked terrified.

“… paid you do to it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man stammered.

“I don’t believe you,” Vanasha said, voice light. Aloy shivered.

“R-really.”

A movement out of the corner of her eye caught Aloy’s attention. A ripple in the air showed what her focus couldn’t – a stalker was approaching. She grabbed her bow and prepared three tear arrows, bringing her bow up and aiming at the fast approaching blur.

The arrows tore off the stalker’s armour and the component that allowed it to remain invisible. Aloy switched to her blast sling and began raining bombs down on the stalker, never giving it time to recover and keeping it stunned until it fell in a heap of unmoving parts.

“Nice,” Vanasha commented. Aloy turned to see her and the man staring at her.

“I’ll – I’ll tell you whatever you want,” the man stammered.

“Really,” Vanasha said disbelievingly.

“That girl just took down a stalker in three seconds flat!” he exclaimed. “I – I don’t want her to use her skills on me. Please, I was just paid to put something in someone’s food –”

“Please, describe the person who hired you,” Vanasha said, leaning forward, her smile sharp enough to cut.

* * *

 

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” Aloy said. Vanasha had interrogated the man about who had hired him – apparently the noble hadn’t even attempted to hide his identity. Vanasha said that the man they had apprehended was actually a known thief who had a reputation for getting in and out of areas that he shouldn’t be in without permission, and without detection.

“I guess that reputation’s ruined now,” Aloy said.

“Yes,” Vanasha replied, satisfied. “It’s up to the Sun-King to judge him now. Although… I might have some ideas as to what to do to him.”

Aloy looked at her from the corner of her eye. “Ideas, huh?”

“Yes,” Vanasha said. “And, talking of ideas, what do you want to do tomorrow for our celebration?”

“Umm,” Aloy said. “I don’t know. I’ve never really… had a day where the point was to just. Do nothing.”

“A spa day,” Vanasha said, nodding.

“Okay,” Aloy said, even though she had no idea what a spa was. She was kind of concerned if it was going to take the whole day though. But if she was with Vanasha… well, she could make do.

“Thanks for your help today, little huntress,” Vanasha said. “Without you, I’m certain that I couldn’t have tracked him down before he made his escape.”

Aloy shrugged. “I don’t mind helping you.”

Vanasha’s eyes shined. “I’m glad. So, it’s late. Do you have a place to stay for the night?”

“Err,” Aloy said. “Well, I was going to just find a room in Meridian, like I normally do.”

Vanasha waved her hand. “Don’t be silly. Come back with me to the Palace. I have a few rooms that we can… make use of.”

Aloy swallowed, and watched as Vanasha’s eyes followed the motion. “Sounds good to me,” she managed to say.

Vanasha’s eyes were pleased. “Good,” she purred. “I’m happy to hear that.”

Aloy wondered what she’d gotten herself into, but she was determined to face it like she did all other challenges in her life – without holding anything back.

**Author's Note:**

> they totally go back to Vanasha's rooms and bang. just sayin
> 
> also! tomorrow's prompt is Holiday + Vanasha, so it will be a follow up to this fic! Time for Aloy to find out what a 'spa' is....


End file.
